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How to deal with parents' divorce.

I don't know how many adults have to deal with the divorce of their parents, but I'm one of them. My parents have been married for 27 years and are recently separated and (slowly) seeking a divorce.

My question is this: my mother and I are very close, but she doesn't seem to understand that I do not want to know the ins and outs of her and my dad's relationship. She is constantly trying to talk to me about current events of their obviously failing marriage. How do I delicately tell her I don't want to hear her basically bash my dad for the years of frustration he's caused her?

"How do I delicately tell her I don't want to hear her basically bash my dad for the years of frustration he's caused her"
try to 'delicately' tel her once, then forget the delicate part.
it's been a while, but I went through this too when my parents divorced. you didn't mention how old you are, but I was about 23 when my parents divorced. Was living at home (dad had moved out) and the woman delivering the papers tried to serve ME with the papers- she thought I was my mom. it still makes me sick to think of that day.
Do all you can to keep out of it.
if your mom wants to talk about these things she should do so with a counselor or someone else. but the man that she's divorcing is your father and this is not your thing. it's theirs.
GL!

I guess you just have to remind her that he's your dad and you'll always love him. Tell her you're sorry for the hurt she's going through, and that you're going through your own hurt over this. That you know you're dad's not perfect, but you have your own relationship with him, and it's too much of a burden to bear their problems as well. A kid should never have to go through that, at any age!

I went through this with my parents - they divorced after 33 years (this was 9 years ago now and I'm 38). Honestly, no one saw this coming, although my sisters and I knew they had intimacy issues since their honeymoon according to my mom. I have to say, we had a great family life growing up so it was extremely hard on us to see it all collapse. My dad purposely stepped back for a while (about a year) so that we could continue to have a strong relationship with my mom...that took work because there were so many issues of things she and her sisters said and did toward us girls. There were also issues of her telling us OVER and OVER again details of the marriage, the breakdown of it, etc. She's remarried and to this day I just know she still loves my dad. He's got a girlfriend (the one he got right before the divorce) and he'll never remarry. We try to do all we can to be a family with him and then with her. Best wishes.

My adult daughters have no problem with telling me that a subject isn't what they feel comfortable talking about or listening to. Just tell her "Mom I don't feel comfortable discussing this." or "Mom I don't think I'm the right person for you to confide in regarding this."